


A Wish Your Heart Makes

by Jouissance (restrained_ubiquity)



Series: OQ Prompt Party 2019 [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, OQ Prompt Party 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-30 19:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19034452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restrained_ubiquity/pseuds/Jouissance
Summary: 1.  Robin paints the woman of his dreams and she comes to life





	A Wish Your Heart Makes

He’s going mad. He’s been over and over it in his mind and it’s the only conclusion that makes one bit of sense. He’s having some sort of nervous breakdown, a latent presentation of an illness that runs in a buried family history, perhaps an undiagnosed brain tumor. Whichever the cause, Robin Locksley is certain he’s officially lost his mind like so many great artists before him. Not that he would dream to compare himself to Van Gogh, Munch,Goya, or any of the other masters; not that he thinks anyone suffering from an mental illness is “crazy”; not that he even knows what he thinks anymore. 

The only thing he is certain of is that this woman won’t let him rest. He sees her in his dreams: her smile, elusive, but so satisfying whenever she deams him worthy of its honor. He feels the silken strands of her hair slip through his fingers. His tastes the sweetness of apples on her lips. He hears her calling his name, desperate, terrified.

She used to vanish when the remnants of sleep left him and the dream was nothing more than a vague recollection. Something that would gnaw at the edges of his mind as he worked, a faded face like a photograph worn with time. But not anymore. Now she’s ever present, crying out to him in the rare moments he manages sleep, haunting him every moment he’s awake. She’s a stranger, but as familiar to him as his own self. Her voice is in the sound of the wind through the trees, her eyes are the light of the stars. 

He’s was painter of landscapes, of great sprawling forests, mountains that disappear into the clouds, rivers that crash into rock. He found peace there in those hidden places he shared with the world through color and texture. He could disappear from the constant noise of the city and lose himself in the subtlety of the color of a leaf as the sun hit it, the splash of water over rock. She’s taken that from him. There’s no hidden thicket to reveal, no branches begging to be climbed. 

There is only her. 

Canvas upon canvas litter his home. Fragments of her that he rushes to get down when she comes to him clear as day: her hands, that smile, her eyes. They’re different every time he sees them. A sparkle of mischief, cold hatred, rage that burns so hot he swears flames dance within them, and sadness. So much sadness. He wants to rid her of that pain he sees more than he wants to rid himself of her. It’s a ridiculous and irrational notion, he’s well aware, but the only thing tethering him to his fractured reality is the need to set her free. 

He hasn’t sold a painting in months, hasn’t left his apartment, hasn’t taken a call. He’s obsessed. Consumed. Her voice is all he hears, louder and louder with every stroke of his brush, endlessly calling his name Robin. Robin! ROBIN! until he’s screaming himself as he manically covers the last bare wall with her face. Those tormenting eyes are closed, dark lashes letting a single tear slip down her cheek. He steps back, utterly exhausted. The ruin of his surroundings go unnoticed, the paint covering his arms, his face, speckled in his hair is irrelevant. He stares at her for what feels like a lifetime, hearing only the sound of his panting breath and the race of his heart. 

She’s whole.

She’s…

“Regina.” The name falls uninhibited from his lips, the sound of it fusing his shattered mind back into place. “Regina,” he says again, louder this time, with his heart racing for an entirely new reason. How could he have forgotten her? How could he not have known her from that first small glimpse? How can she not be by his side? “REGINA!” he bellows until the room shakes and that face on the wall blurs as portal spins to life.

He doesn’t think twice before stepping through. The first thing he feels is the night air prickling his skin. His bare feet step gingerly over the forest path, lit only by moonlight. Fortunately, he doesn’t need the light. He’s painted this path thousands of times, knows the placement for every rock and leaf, knows that it curves to the right just ahead and runs straight into the river. 

It would seem his mind had always been in this forest. His heart as well.

“Regina,” he whispers, stopping in his tracks when he spots her at the riverbank, staring up at the stars. She whirls around at the sound of her name. Those eyes locking with his instantly. He can’t breathe, can’t move other than to open his arms to her. She charges into them, great, gasping sobs shaking her body as they both cling to the part of their soul they’d been missing. “I couldn’t put the pieces together,” he cries into her shoulder. She’d been reaching out for so long. He’d wasted so much time trying to push her away.

“You’re here now,” she pulls back enough to pull his forehead down to hers, “and this is true.”


End file.
